Managing product/process knowledge in the Concurrent/simultaneous Enterprise Environment

摘要

This paper introduces the work done up to now for our team in the field of managing the knowledge related to product/process in the Concurrent/simultaneous Enterprise Environment. The main business aim is to produce a leap forward in industrial design performance in Companies. Knowledge useful to design engineers comes in many forms and useful knowledge can come from many sources inside and outside the Enterprise. A common need is to be able to acquire and process this knowledge so that a greater, richer, centralized source of knowledge and information is available to produce better designs, faster, with greater innovation, and with less re-inventing of the wheel. The most important needs with regard to design are to get good products to the marketplace quicker, and to reduce costs related to design. The team is coordinating two relevant European projects within the 5'h and 6tb Framework of the European Commission: AIM (Acceleration of Innovative Ideas into the Market), an IMS project (including partners outside Europe) with the goal of developing a system to support the collection of innovative ideas and relevant knowledge throughout the extended enterprise for new and existing process and product developments, and to develop these ideas and knowledge into a means of fostering industrial innovations. And a new project (starting November 2004) focusing to the same subject specifically oriented to SMEs: ASSIST. This project is aimed at achieving a breakthrough in the use of advanced agent-based knowledge management techniques in real industrial practice, within an innovative ICT solution affordable to SMEs.